Patients with IBS were 60% more likely to have one of those conditions than were those who didn't have IBS, according to J. Alexander Cole, D.Sc., M.P.H., of Boston University, and colleagues, who studied nearly 100,000 IBS patients enrolled in a national health insurance plan.

Patients who were treated for IBS were 40% more likely to have depression, 60% more likely to suffer migraine, and 80% more likely to seek treatment for fibromyalgia, they reported in the current issue of BMC Gastroenterology.

Dr. Cole and colleagues used a database of medical and pharmacy claims filed from January 1, 1996, through June 30, 2002, to identify 97,593 people who were treated for IBS.

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